WATSONVILLE >> The Pajaro Valley Unified School District Board of Trustees will have two meetings this week: a regular board meeting Wednesday packed with agenda items and a special meeting Friday to discuss ethnic studies.

Among the many items the board will be considering Wednesday is the second interim budget report. According to district officials, the report provides an update on the district’s financial and budgetary status based on fiscal activity that began July 1, 2024 and ended Jan. 31.

“The purpose of the 2nd Interim Budget Report is to certify that the District will be able to meet its financial obligations for the current and two succeeding fiscal years with a Positive Certification,” officials wrote. “The 1st and 2nd Interim budget updates are intended to be fiscal barometers, and give the District the opportunities to capture changes at the federal, state, and local levels. Additionally, the 2nd Interim Budget Report reflects budgetary changes resulting from the annual release of the Governor’s Budget Proposal in January of each year.”

The report will also incorporate staff reductions that were approved at the Feb. 25 board meeting. Following the Feb. 12 meeting where the board voted 4-3 not to approve any proposed staff cuts, the board voted again nearly two weeks later to approve the majority of the proposed cuts.

These 60 cuts mostly included certificated teaching and instructional assistant positions while sparing counselors, elementary intervention teachers and mental health clinicians. Superintendent Heather Contreras said many of these positions were created with one-time funding during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Per the California Education Code, the interim budget would receive a “positive” certification if it is projected to meet its financial obligations in all three budget years: those for the 2024-25, 2025-26 and 2026-27 fiscal years.

While the district is projected to deficit spend in all three of those budget years, officials wrote that Pajaro Valley Unified will be able to meet the minimum 3% Reserve for Economic Uncertainty in those years, citing the reductions approved at the Feb. 25 meeting.

The district is recommending the board approve the report which would then be reviewed and certified by the Santa Cruz County Office of Education with recommended revisions, per Assembly Bill 1200.

In other business, the board will consider a resolution exempting the Ceiba College Preparatory Academy campus, an independent charter school on Locust Street, from local zoning ordinances and will also explore a resolution transitioning the Virtual Academy from a school to a district-run independent study program.

The board will meet at 6 p.m. Wednesday in the City Council Chambers on the top floor of the Watsonville Civic Plaza, 275 Main St.

The other meeting is a study session Friday to discuss the district’s ethnic studies curriculum. In 2021, the board approved a contract with Community Responsive Education, a for-profit consultant firm founded by San Francisco State University professor Dr. Allyson Tintiangco-Cubales and other ethnic studies instructors, to provide guidelines for ethnic studies curricula at the district’s three comprehensive high schools.

However, when the contract came back to the board for renewal in 2023, it was not renewed with some trustees at the time expressing concerns that the material was antisemitic, a claim which Tintiangco-Cubales denied. The debate over this curriculum dominated the public comment sessions at board meetings throughout 2024.

While the board will not take immediate action on any ethnic studies contract at this meeting, the session will focus on how the district teaches ethnic studies, how the program developed in the district, current needs and potential next steps.

A town hall is reportedly also being scheduled in the coming weeks, a contract for the vendor who will provide professional development on ethnic studies will be presented at the April 16 meeting and a selection on the contract will be made at the May 7 meeting.

The study session will be held 5 to 8 p.m. Friday in the Watsonville City Council Chambers at the address listed above.